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Asian studies alumnus Lucas Lowenfish, soon to become a Peace Corps volunteer in Madagascar, experienced ‘a big trajectory change’ during Primates of Vietnam study abroad program

Before the sun rises in Cát Tiên National Park in Vietnam, the forest is wide awake. recalls slipping into the humid darkness with a few friends from his study abroad group to hike toward a tree they’d been told about.��

This particular tree hosts a family of gibbons that congregates every morning to sing just as light begins to filter through the canopy.��

“They start jumping and dancing around and doing their songs. It’s a coordinated singing that sounds unlike anything I’ve heard before,” says Lowenfish, a recent ���Ĵ�ý graduate in Asian studies.��

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Recent Asian studies graduate Lucas Lowenfish pivoted his career path after participating in the Primates of Vietnam study abroad program.

Later that morning, Lowenfish and a friend wandered deeper into the forest. Upon rounding a bend in the trail, they found themselves just feet from two gibbons mid-call. Close enough that, as Lowenfish puts it, “You can feel it in your head.”��

That morning in the forest, and others exploring Cát Tiên and the jungles of Vietnam, gave Lowenfish a new direction for his career.��

An unlikely primatologist

Lowenfish grew up in Washington, D.C., asking his parents for more time at the primate exhibit every time his family visited the zoo. He arrived at CU ���Ĵ�ý as an Asian studies major after taking Chinese classes in high school.��

A career in primatology had never crossed his mind.��

Then came a study abroad program led by CU ���Ĵ�ý anthropology professors Jonathan O’Brien and Herbert “Bert” Covert. The duo takes students through an immersive tour of the biodiversity of Vietnam, visiting national parks, conservation NGOs, research centers and wildlife rehabilitation facilities.��

For Lowenfish, the trip was an eye-opener.��

“I’d never really thought about how studying monkeys could be a job, you know? But then my professors are in the field and we’re meeting people who are doing this full-time. Now that I was seeing that this is a thing, I knew I totally wanted to do it, too,” he says.��

He calls the trip a “big trajectory change” for his career goals.��

The “” program runs each summer and draws a small cohort of eight to 15 undergraduates for a three-week adventure. Lowenfish says the experience rewards a certain kind of student.��

“You definitely have to be adventurous and willing to step pretty far out of your comfort zone. But if you can do that, it’s like the greatest trip ever.”��

What’s killing the gibbons?

After completing the study abroad trip, Lowenfish returned to ���Ĵ�ý and began writing a senior thesis on gibbon conservation across Southeast Asia.��

Gibbons, natives of not just Vietnam but also Myanmar, India and Bangladesh, are among the most endangered primates on Earth. The threats driving their decline are consistent across borders.��

Lowenfish says the main contributors are habitat loss from logging, industrial agriculture and expanding construction projects in the old-growth forests gibbons need to survive. Poaching is also a factor, with gibbon hunting feeding both the traditional medicine trade and the illegal pet market.��

Lowenfish’s thesis draws on a study in which researchers examined dozens of established and potential gibbon habitats across several southeast Asian countries.��

“The finding is pretty straightforward. These areas need immediate protected status, and that kind of systemic mapping needs to happen across all southeast Asia,” Lowenfish says.��

But the tension between conservation and rapid economic development makes that work harder. Lowenfish watched this play out firsthand in Da Nang, where a critically endangered primate called the red-shanked douc lives on a coastal peninsula.��

“These development companies, mostly doing hotels and resorts, because they’re right on the beach in Da Nang, have been able to lobby to get more and more of the land. They’ve been able to get it unprotected and develop on it,” Lowenfish says.��

“They’re just building more hotels and there’s already like 50 hotels there. Half of them don’t even make money, but they just keep building them, and it’s ruining the habitat.”��

��A cooperative solution��

Lowenfish is careful not to let the scale of the problem crowd out the solutions. His thesis makes the case that meaningful conservation is happening.��

Formal protected areas are the most effective intervention for gibbon populations. In Indonesia, a Wildlife Crimes Unit assembled a large ranger force in one national park and produced measurable population gains. Lowenfish says this model has since expanded to other countries in the region.��

But the interventions he finds most compelling are the ones that work with local communities rather than ignoring their economic realities. He describes a project he learned about in Vietnam, in which an outside organizer partnered with slash-and-burn farming communities to offer a better solution.��

“They taught these guys how to grow their own coffee more sustainably, package it and sell it,” Lowenfish says.��

The same logic supports an eco-hostel project on an island critical to sea turtle nesting.��

“The operators hired local rangers to patrol the shoreline and act as guides for the tourists. And these are the same guys who were hunting the turtles before,” says Lowenfish.��

By creating new sources of income for local communities, these initiatives and others like them offer an alternative to clearing forest habitats for development or hunting endangered animals to sell to black-market buyers.��

“You can’t just go in and tell someone to stop doing something and just expect them to do that for the good of the gibbons, especially when it’s their livelihood. You have to find ways to work together so everyone can benefit,” Lowenfish says.��

Next stop, Madagascar

This fall, Lowenfish heads to Madagascar as a Peace Corps volunteer. While most of his time will be spent teaching English, Madagascar is home to lemurs, a primate lineage found nowhere else on Earth—and one that struggles with the same conservation challenges Lowenfish has been writing about.��

He’s already picturing how to spend his free time.��

“I’m hoping I can volunteer with a research center or something like that. Hopefully I can get into some real primatology stuff there, but even just getting to hang out with some lemurs would be pretty cool.”

It’s a fitting next chapter, but gibbons are still his focus right now. When asked to make the case for gibbon conservation, Lowenfish had an immediate answer.

“They are some of the most unique and beautiful creatures on Earth. They’re the only species with that particular combination of song and choreography.”��

But there’s a practical argument, too.��

“Gibbons are the premier seed dispersers in Asian forests. They eat fruit and distribute the seeds across huge territories,” Lowenfish says.��

“Once we lose them, the entire forest suffers.”��

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